Maxdmyz, â€œAllâ€

Having reverberated around the much-damaged walls of London’s industrial metal block, Maxdmyz is back to unleash another round of abuse, this time in the form of their single “All.”

The track beings ominously enough with a synthetic pulsation that conjures up images of Trent Reznor with a defibrillator. Then comes an inhuman answering message voice speaking, which only adds to the alienated and eerie tone.

Spoken lyrics ensure. In short time, it becomes all too clear that the speaker is a distressed soul, voicing a desire for oblivion: “All I want to do is sleep, to sleep and never wake, to disappear, pretend I was never here…rest in peace.”

Interestingly enough, immediately after the mention of “rest in peace,” the song charges into its most energetic and forceful moments. Uncompromising high-distortion guitar takes over, complimented by robust vocals. No more spoken word lyrics; the singer begins to climb octaves and decibels.

Though the band hails from London, one wonders if the vocalist was made in the USA, as not a whiff of a British accent announces itself. Perhaps the distortion clouds over one’s ability to distinguish.

However, it should be noted, that although there is ample distortion, the music never descends into anything approaching chaos and/or incoherence.

Indeed there is something rigid and well-controlled about “All.” The gloom is dominating to the point of being “all”-encompassing. With the line, “Way out I hear the call,” one is almost tempted to add “for suicide” to the end of it. Just maybe, in the speaker’s distressed mind, these two words go without saying.

One word that may enter the listener’s mind is “Thanatos,” which was the mythological demonic personification of death, and has been employed by modern psychologists to represent the death drive. This death drive is present in all conscious beings, though some have it to a far greater extent than others. A fair bet is that the song’s speaker has it to vast, quite likely fatal degree.

“All” takes on something of the feel of a death march — a death march with harmony, albeit a brooding sort of harmony.